Bill Monroe

No single figure in American music so dominated a genre as did Bill Monroe with bluegrass. Bill Monroe: Father of Bluegrass Music features performances by Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys, Lester Flatt, Emmylou Harris, Paul McCartney, the Osborne Brothers, Dolly Parton, Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, John Hartford and a once-in-a-lifetime Blue Grass Boys reunion featuring Del McCoury, Chubby Wise an

No single figure in American music so dominated a genre as did Bill Monroe with bluegrass. Bill Monroe: Father of Bluegrass Music features performances by Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys, Lester Flatt, Emmylou Harris, Paul McCartney, the Osborne Brothe

Letter: Sredzinski has already proven he's a leader
If you need examples of his leadership, you need look no further then 2011, when J.P. authored and then worked to ensure passage of the Right to Farm Bill. One of the things I love about Monroe, and the reason why I moved here and raised my family here …Read more on Monroe Courier

Sounds from the mountain
Viewers can anticipate hearing classics such as “My Florida Sunshine,” by Grand Ole Opry veteran Bill Monroe, and “There Is A Time,” by the Dillards. The Mountain Music Concert featuring the WVU Bluegrass Band will take place at 8 p.m. tonight in the …Read more on Daily Athenaeum

ULM United Way kickoff scheduled for Tuesday
The University of Louisiana at Monroe will host its annual United Way Campus Campaign Kickoff event from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Tuesday in The Quad, located behind the Student Center. Guest speakers include representatives from the United Way, recipients of …Read more on Monroe News Star

Holder Resigning: Attorney General Backed Rights
Only three other attorneys general in U.S. history have served longer than the 63-year-old Holder: William Wirt in the administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, Janet Reno in the Bill Clinton administration and Homer Cummings for Franklin …Read more on CBS Local

Image of Dontavious Jackson via 247 Sports
Eric Monroe: Coach Kish also stopped by Northshore (Houston, TX), a school always loaded with talent, and extended an offer to 2016 DB Eric Monroe. The talented safety prospect already holds a number of offers (LSU, TAMU, Texas, etc.). We're not sure …Read more on The Football Brainiacs

Considering the range of stars that have claimed Bill Monroe as an influence—Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and Jerry Garcia are just a few—it can be said that no single artist has had as broad an impact on American popular music as he did. For sixty years, Monroe was a star at the Grand Ole Opry, and when he died in 1996, he was universally hailed as “the Father of Bluegrass.” But the personal life of this taciturn figure remained largely unknown. Delving into everything from Monroe’s professional successes to his bitter rivalries, from his isolated childhood to his reckless womanizing, veteran bluegrass journalist Richard D. Smith has created a three-dimensional portrait of this brilliant, complex, and contradictory man. Featuring over 120 interviews, this scrupulously researched work—a Chicago Tribune Choice Selection, New York Times Notable Book, and Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2000—stands as the authoritative biography of a true giant of American music.

The legendary mandolinist and bandleader Bill Monroe wove his personal vision through more than 60 tireless years of recording and performing, inventing almost single-handedly the music that is now known–in a nod to his first band, the Blue Grass Boys–as bluegrass. In his thoughtful biography Can’t You Hear Me Callin’, Richard D. Smith argues that “no single artist has had as broad an impact on American music.” As evidence, he highlights dozens of country and rock & roll musicians, both white and black, who were inspired by Monroe’s powerful mandolin playing on the Grand Ole Opry’s weekly broadcasts. (Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline,” for example, is an almost note-for-note copy of Monroe’s instrumental “Ida Red.”) Until now, however, Monroe’s hesitation to reveal personal details has kept his personality as mysterious as one of the foggy mountaintops he sang about in his signature high lonesome tenor.

Bluegrass audiences required a rural, Southern authenticity from the “Father of Bluegrass,” and Monroe was slow to deny their exaggerations. Smith, however, dismisses many of the backwoodsy stories that grew up around the Monroe myth, instead emphasizing truer biographical elements: loneliness, fear of abandonment, compulsiveness with women. Perhaps the book’s main scholarly step forward is the depth of interviews and research the author conducted with the women in Monroe’s life. Indeed, Smith remarks that “without exception,” none of Monroe’s platonic or romantic women friends had been interviewed before. These women reveal a second Bill Monroe, relaxed and gentle in private despite his imperious manner onstage.

Much of the book relies on the archives of the late Ralph Rinzler, a Smithsonian folklorist whose plans to write a Monroe biography were thwarted by his untimely death. Taking up where Rinzler left off, Smith employs solid scholarship and thorough fieldwork, yet he remains clearly in awe of his subject, ranking him as a “true giant of American music” on the level of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, and Charles Ives. Can’t You Hear Me Callin’ is the first published attempt at a comprehensive, critical biography of Bill Monroe. Surely, it won’t be the last–a testament to the enigmatic genius whose every note extended one of our most emotive and demanding musical genres. –Edward Skoog

Short Takes: Singing at 606, Valentine's Day, Jonathan Scales Fourchestra and …
Count the legendary David Grisman among the few acts announced thus far to appear at the forthcoming Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. As a nod to the man who has played with the likes of legends Bill Monroe and Jerry Garcia, Grisman leads this week's …Read more on TriCities.com

The best movies to watch on Netflix for Valentine's Day
stuck-in-love-netflix-valentines-day-rec. Synopsis: Three years past his divorce, veteran novelist Bill Borgens can't stop obsessing over, let alone spying on, his ex-wife Erica, who ignominiously left him for another man. Even as his neighbor-with …Read more on Hypable

Grayson County Hospital Recognized for Fit-Friendly Workplace
Monroe said: "We got points for 5ks, we got points for every time we worked out, points for submitting a grocery bill with healthy foods." Sikes said of the other employees: "It really makes me proud to see that they are making lifestyle changes and …Read more on KTEN

Michael Martin Murphey to perform in Grand Junction
I learned all that stuff.” Songs include such icons as Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, Woody Guthrie and the Louvin Brothers. Murphey's songs reflect his lifestyle — “I'm a cowboy and a rancher and I write about it …Read more on Glenwood Springs Post Independent

Bill Monroe is undisputedly the father of bluegrass music. With his Blue Grass Boys, he defined the instrumental style, giving the world the harmonies and toe-tapping tempos of this American art form. This collection features such hits as ‘Goodbye Old Pal’ & ‘Midnight On The Stormy Deep’.MCA. 2005.

Chillbillies to channel Elvis at annual event
“That's All Right” was released July 19, 1954, along with a version of Bill Monroe's waltz, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” The recording launched a career that defined rock and roll. In 2010, The Chillbillies threw their first dance party at the Center for …Read more on The Union of Grass Valley